About KP's Dogs

My current canine family: Sunny, Dexter, and Rowdy

In 2003, after all three members of the last generation of my canine family had passed away in relatively quick succession, I decided to try and live without any dogs, just to see what that would be like. Suffice it to say that within four months, I knew that my experiment had failed. So I marched down to my local animal shelter and with a slightly crazed look in my eye, said, "I want to adopt two dogs—and I want to do it right now!" And that's exactly what I did. I adopted two best friends, Sunny and Dexter, who had already been kenneled side by side for three weeks.

You could not ask for two dogs with such vastly different personalities: Sunny is a natural, self-confident leader with a world-weary look to her face, something of a control freak with a touch of the police dog in her. Dexter, on the other hand, is just plain silly, always looking to have fun and stir things up—he even makes goofy faces at Sunny just to get her riled up—and he's a true drama queen if ever there was one. Yet they love each other very much.

Even at the tender ages of 1 (Dexter) and 2 (Sunny), both came with a significant amount of emotional baggage. Both feared men and children, and Dexter's anxiety levels were so high that he chewed his tail bloody every night for the first month. But little by little, most of that anxiety melted away (with the help of generous amounts of tasty treats and lots of socialization and love).

After I had had them for almost two years, I got a call from a former neighbor with a 7-year-old dog named Rowdy, who shocked me to the core by telling me that he and his wife needed to find Rowdy a new home. Rowdy had been the best friend of my last late dog, Darby, after all Darby’s "siblings" had died. He used to come over and spend the night all the time, and he was a wonderful dog—what on Earth could possess them to give him away? Well, they were having another baby and apparently Rowdy had a history of peeing on the first baby's things, so out he had to go. I said, "You called the right person." And Rowdy has been a part of our pack ever since.

People say that Sunny, Dexter, and Rowdy look alike, which always puzzles me. To me, there's no resemblance whatsoever (Sunny's a stocky, golden-haired shepherd mix, Rowdy's a leggy shepherd-greyhound mix, and Dexter's a short-haired muscle-bound Heinz 57 with a speckled face), but they do function very well as a tightly knit pack. And over the past year, they've demonstrated to me firsthand the healing powers of a normal, balanced pack on unbalanced dogs in need of rehabilitation. I've taken in a series of foster dogs this past year, and again and again, I've seen my dog pack work its magic on them. Dexter makes up the welcoming committee, bringing out the playfulness in the shy dogs. Sunny provides the calm stable leadership that feels so reassuring. And Rowdy is the "nice guy" who helps teach the rules and serves as a warm, comfortable sleeping and sunbathing companion. I'm so proud of them and impressed with their ability to transform troubled, hurting dogs into happy, relaxed, "normal" animals.